To call for a general strike to force a snap general election?

[TheDCDeserveBetter]

I think the state of our country is getting really serious, and I wonder - if we called a general strike, could we force a general election before Christmas?

For context, my GP surgery and local hospital is in struggling badly, so that my own health is now in big trouble.

My DS's secondary school is so short-staffed that my DS, who is super-smart, but has a dual diagnosis, has been having panic attacks and has dropped out. I'm not well enough to home school him, and there are not enough special school places to get him help.

We have had endless trouble with low grade criminal activity in volunteer organisations over the years and no help, because the police are under-funded. This means that our community involvement has dwindled to nothing and he has no social support outside school and our house.

We have enough money, but I have started posting our spare food on freecycle and I get desperate people coming to collect it and asking if we have anything else surplus. I know that at least one of my DS's friends is short of food.

Nothing much is being done about climate change.

Now they're making it illegal to give tents to homeless people?!

Can't we just force a general election now?

The conservatives could organise a snap general election easily enough if they thought it would get them a bigger majority,

I think they should do the morally right thing and call one now to get us a better government.

Posting this in trepidation, because I know AIBU is fierce. What do you think though?

They will TRY to spend the next 4 years blaming the tories but I don't think anyone will let them get away with that.

I don’t think a general strike will work but a general election is desperately needed to get these brutal incompetent Tories out.

The country is getting poorer, it has been since the world wars. A change of government will just change who everyone blames because they expect unaffordable Rolls Royce public services.

The next election will be a good one to lose 😀

I'm with you OP.

This government are horrific.

This is not a game. It’s not about losing so you can escape the fall out from the destruction these bunch of Tory nihilists have caused.

We need someone in who will roll up their sleeves and begin the painstaking work of halting the decline, then repairing the foundations so we can start to rebuild our country again.

This will take some time given where we are, but preventing this current lot from more corruption, damage and salting the Earth, is a start.

Who is this ‘we’ that will be calling this general strike? The last one came about for quite specific reasons, and it failed. Plus there’s an election due next year so even if there was a general strike all the chaos that it would cause would only buy a few months, assuming it worked of course.

I think labour will win the next election, but i don’t think anything will improve much.
Politics is such a murky world, Westminster is rotten to the core whatever party is in charge.

Unions aren't elected to run the country, or to topple governments . Their grotesque abuse of power and infiltration by dangerous militants was the very reason we needed someone like Thatcher to curb their putschist ambitions. And the country is much safer for that.

COVID has badly derailed the already-fragile public services. Strikes by the public sector have only made things worse not better...

There are plenty of people on MN who are still trying to blame the last Labour government for everything that’s wrong with the country. Who else should be blamed? Remind me who’s been in power for 13 years.

OP YANBU but not enough people care or will actually DO anything. I was a trade union activist years ago and it was always the case that just a few get off their bums to take action.
Hope I die before I get old - it's the children I feel sorry for.

Great idea!

However you need to show your working. Currently it appears to be:

General strike -> ?????? -> Labour government ->?????? -> NHS fixed.

I mean as a plan it is about a solid as a five year olds strategy to hold their breath until they are allowed to eat ice cream for dinner.

@IthinkIamAnAlien As someone in a trade union who has taken industrial action recently (which has had zero effect), I would say most members are getting pissed off at union leaders/executives (not so much at the lowest workplaces level) droning on about "staying strong" and "solidarity" when they are loosing nothing in terms of pay, oh sorry, on strike days the executive donate their pay to the strike fund (big hardship if you are on 100k union salary)

Things have been in this state for several years now.

I didn't vote at the last GE because the options were monstrous.

I don't think that any party can solve this.

Politics is evil.

The NHS particularly needs a divorce from politics and a mega overhaul. I think the backlog and problems are too severe to be fixed though.

YABU to think a general strike and GE will fix this shitshow. We've been in the shitshow for years. The problems are hideous. I would emigrate if I could.

Unless they change - or break - the law.

Remember Boris Johnsons illegal prorogation of parliament ?

You must be new here. A couple of days and you will find posters blaming Harold Wilson for todays ills. To say nothing of the few posters who rue the repeal of the Corn Laws.

How ridiculous! You do realise that this isn't how democracy works right? The majority of the population voted in this government and it was clear at the time of voting that this would give the winning party a mandate to govern the country for a specific period of time. You and your unionised friends don't get to usurp this and cut short a government's time in power because you have decided you don't like how things are going and want a change.

For starters, how do you feel about the fact that only some of the population that are eligible to vote are in a position to strike? The elderly, disabled, non-unionised workers etc don't have the ability to withdraw their labour in order to try and bring about a general election and essentially cancel out a democratic vote that had taken place. You would essentially be adding an element to a supposedly democratic process that would be incredibly undemocratic and only be influenced and carried out by a select portion of the population.

Also, how would you feel if Labour gained power (which I presume is what you would want to happen) and then immediately did something that was unpopular with the people? They could very well ride out the storm and turn around public opinion in the long term (afterall all governments have ebbs and flows in their popularity), but what if people followed the precedent that had been set and decided that they should strike immediately to bring about change. No government would dare to do anything vaguely unpopular in the short term for fear of being overthrown. The instability and popularism that would be brought about by undermining democracy is so dangerous and damaging to the country that it simply isn't a sensible strategy to adopt even if you despise the current government.

You don't understand how election campaigning works do you? Clue...you don't start it before an election is called.

And that"s especially true if your main opposition are literally destroying themselves and the country from within.

Great idea. Let's do more damage to the economy. GDP has been badly dented this year by strikes, so every time you moan about lack of growth, just maybe think you are contributing to that.

If you think the Labour govn will make things better, you will be in for an unpleasant surprise. They have no strong policies and no backbone. They will spend the next four years blaming the tories for their shortcomings

Exactly

Well the government would probably say it’s against their new British values. The opposition would say we agree with them!

sir Keir should be storming it is the polls and be riding a wave of popularity. He should be banging at the doors of number 10 with only the timing of an election keeping him at bay.

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html

It should be the easiest election win ever for Labour, if they fuck this up then that's quite some going.

Polls didn’t predict a Tory win with Boris, let alone a massive majority.

I’m with PP’s, who knows what labour will do. Clearly they will have to raise tax, which they’re not going to admit. Closing non-Dom loopholes and taxing private schools is not going to cover anything near what they want to do.

BIossomtoes

From the website in your link;

Track Record: 2015 Errors

The headline prediction for the May 2015 election was not accurate. The final prediction was for a hung parliament with Labour/SNP as the largest bloc. The actual result was a small Conservative majority.

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/trackrecord_15errors.html